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We outline six questions you must ask when deciding whether to move your telephony system to a hosted VoIP provider, including questions about reliability, branch survivability, E911 capability and whether you're looking for additional collaboration services. We also outline how to price a hosted VoIP option.

Eventually, the vast majority of Web applications will run on a platform-as-a-service, or PaaS, vendor's infrastructure. The shift will be gradual -- significantly slower than the move to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers like Amazon Web Services -- for several reasons.

The cloud promises -- and often delivers -- tremendous cost savings and agility for enterprises. However, whether a company is leveraging the public cloud, a private cloud or some combination thereof, the security equation changes significantly when the cloud is a factor. In this Dark Reading report, we examine the security implications of cloud computing and offer advice for plugging any holes in the model.

In the increasingly complex world of information security, it's important for security professionals to be able to understand not only how their organization's systems and data may be compromised but why. In this Dark Reading report we examine why certain vulnerabilities are exploited, by whom and with what. We also provide recommendations for getting out in front of hackers by using some of the same tools and strategies they do.

Assessing and reporting risk is a challenge in any case, but especially in today's constantly changing IT and business environments. Organizations that want to approach risk in a systematic way face significant obstacles, but it is possible to adopt a structured risk management strategy while keeping data current. In this Dark Reading report, we recommend strategies and tools for harnessing data in a way that's relevant and meaningful, and can be effectively reported to all stakeholders.

IBM has long touted big iron as the platform of choice for massive transactions, batch processing and critical financial services, and with good reason. But can the mainframe hold its ground in the face of cloud, distributed computing and relentless budget pressure? Yes, if IT can leverage killer apps and hold the line on costs.

To understand how to secure big data, you have to understand what it is -- and what it isn't. As organizations set about building big data clusters, they're finding that many of the best practices for securing such clusters are the same used to secure any corporate data. However, there are some big differences as well.

Letting a bring-your-own-device program grow organically is not a plan, it's an invitation to chaos and breaches. While it's never too late to put structure in place, the longer you wait, the more difficult it gets.

Can you run that old ERP system on AWS or CloudStack? Yes, and it just may save you money. However, CIOs need to ensure that teams set expectations, use the right tools for the right use case and test before leaping. Oh, and don't get stopped by the application life cycle police.

Risk is a factor in any enterprise, and managing that risk is always a challenge. In regulated industries, however, the challenge is heightened by goals that sometimes overlap but more often do not. In this Dark Reading report, we will examine the general considerations organizations must make when putting risk into a compliance context, as well as recommend specific strategies for leveraging organizational risk management work to achieve compliance goals.

It's a mobile world, and Wi-Fi is displacing wired Ethernet: 89% use 802.11 as a client network access method, up from 76% in 2010. Still, IT must meet high expectations for network speed, security and reliability. Perhaps that's why a surprising 45% have plans to deploy 802.11ac gear in production.

Every business needs a plan for what’s projected to be a $1 trillion market by 2017. Here’s how to future-proof mobile commerce investments and strategies, navigate a dynamic landscape, gauge the momentum of key companies, and weigh the pros and cons of various approaches and architectures.

Want our advice? Throw out your enterprise social network. Our survey says just 13% have meshed internal and external communications, and only 21% have seen significant reductions in email volumes. Meanwhile, 62% have yet to integrate any external social media into internal applications. Start fresh and think social technologies, not platform silos.

Social engineering attacks are getting increasingly sophisticated, but there's only so much the law and technology can do to protect your organization. In this Dark Reading report, we detail how a social engineering attack is developed and what IT professionals can do to prevent their users from being targets and victims.

Application security is challenging because of the number of applications in use at most organizations, their visibility (or lack thereof) and their constant churn. In this Dark Reading report, we examine the best ways to build an explicit, systematic plan for discovering applications, identifying vulnerabilities and mitigating risk.

They are out to get you, make no mistake. But there are things you can do to make sure that your organization is unappealing to a cybercriminal bent on finding easy pickings. The key is to understand what cybercriminals are looking for and how they go about the business of infiltrating vulnerable systems and networks.

Small and midsize businesses have a big security problem: They are vulnerable to the same kinds of attacks as large enterprises, but they often don't have the same resources for fending off, or recovering from, those attacks. Security services can help small and midsize businesses get and stay secure. In this report, Dark Reading examines the reasons why MSSPs make sense for SMBs, recommends the six categories of services that every SMB needs, and provides tips for evaluating and hiring providers.

Pinched by the cloud on one side and insider attacks on the other, enterprises are turning to smarter identity management technology to help them secure critical assets. In this Dark Reading report, we take a look at IAM's next wave.

With every data center resource -- compute, storage and networks -- now virtualized, with a software abstraction layer insulating the logical resource from physical manifestation, the push is on to consolidate operational control and programmatic automation. First came VMMs and cloud software stacks for servers and storage, then SDN for networks; soon, the two will link to form what VMware calls "software-defined data centers." It's a nexus that's disrupting strategies at major IT vendors and, ultimately if not imminently, every enterprise data center.

The complexity of managing mobile devices should get easier going forward, but that's not the case right now. As traditional laptop PCs continue to die a slow death, most IT departments will be forced to alter the way they approach client management. Despite the growing popularity and acceptance of the bring-your-own-device -- or BYOD -- movement, there are a number of things working against IT. Fortunately, there are also a number of tools, some of them free, that security professionals can use along with strong policy and best practices to close the enterprise mobile security gap.

In this installment of our quarterly series, we look at two complementary technologies that we expect to see come together in the not-too-distant future: advanced conference calling and enterprise social networking.

Virtualization let IT automate the entire life cycle of a server, from provisioning and initialization through steady-state and change management to termination. But this is only the first step on the path to fully coordinated, automated and managed systems. The ultimate goal: orchestration, where business needs can be defined and executed without human intervention. We'll examine the essential elements of orchestration, focusing on public and private clouds.

Hiring the wrong security pro can be a costly mistake that could set your company back years in terms of risk reduction. But finding the right person isn't easy: 39% of respondents to our staffing survey at security-focused companies say people with the required skill sets may be hard to find, and 18% say salary demands may exceed their budgets. But don't despair. We'll walk you through the steps you need to take to find the best security professionals.

Knotted and complex database access permissions are among the biggest threats to enterprise data security. In this Dark Reading report, we examine the problems associated with granting permissions to sensitive data, and recommend solutions that will help organizations thoughtfully and effectively grant privilege when and where it is needed -- and only when and where it is needed.